LG's dual core 1080p recording beast hits the T-Mobile airwaves. Will the T-Mobile G2x stiff the competition? Read here to find out.
T-Mobile G2x Report
The era of Superphones has dawned upon us, and the T-Mobile G2x is a new powerhouse equipped with an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor. However, the G2x strays from the pack by offering 1080p Full HD video recording, just like its big brother, the T-Mobile G-Slate Internet tablet. In fact, it shares many core specs with the G-Slate, but we found it to be faster than the giant. The T-Mobile G2x (specs) gave us a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera and 8-megapixel main camera, and the phone came preloaded with Need For Speed Shift. With a 4-inch high-resolution screen, accelerometer, Android Market, and Tegra Zone, gaming was one of the phone's key features. Is the G2x the new high water mark, or is it just another first-generation dual core beta test? Let's find out in our full review.
Design
The G2x is a taller drink of water, looming over the Atrix 4G, Droid Incredible 2, and iPhone 4. The phone's 4-inch 800 x 480-pixel capacitive touch-screen display flaunted 16 million colors and proved to be one of the better screens we've seen on a high-end device. Though the G2x was slightly larger than the competition, it was more portable than behemoths like the HTC EVO 4G and Motorola Droid X. Appearance wise, it seems as though LG is attempting to create a seamless family of 1080p-capable super devices, as the G2x features the same iridescent black panel with stainless metal Google strip. Seeing both of them side by side made us feel like the G2x was placed inside an incredible shrinking machine.
The G2x has an 8-megapixel main camera with LED flash and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat. An HDMI terminal accompanies the lenses and foreshadows 1080p playback on an HD monitor. In back, we've got a 1500mAh battery and slot for a MicroSD card up to 32GB, but there's no included MicroSD card to compliment this entertainment beast. In that sense we felt gypped, but it did offer 8GB of internal storage. Other than that, the phone offered a typical duo of Power/Lock and Volume buttons, in addition to a 3.5mm audio jack and naked USB jack. The bottom of the phone boasts stereo speakers that played nicely with its DTS sound. The G2x, aside from its HDMI terminal, was another brick in the safe design wall spanning the high-end smartphone market.
Software and Interface
Here's where the G2x shines. It's got an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor with 1GHz at each core, just like the T-Mobile G-Slate and Atrix 4G. We will say that this phone flies, and we actually found it to be more reliable than the G-Slate. Part of its speed comes from its 512MB of RAM, but that dual core action really accelerated our navigation experience. The smartphone packs in Wi-Fi with DLNA, Stereo Bluetooth 2.1, Adobe Flash Player Support, and a dedicated music player. The phone runs on Android 2.2 and is capable of connecting to T-Mobile's HSPA+ network.
Though the G2x's interface was not as attractive as HTC Sense, it was still easy to navigate with. In the Applications menu, all of our icons were displayed in a Star Wars asteroid-type flywheel fashion, almost as if we were pulling a tablecloth draped over a table to view them all. We got 5 Home screens with the typical press and hole to bring up the Widgets/Shortcuts/Folders/Wallpapers menu. For a widget selection, the phone offered Calendar, Latitude, News & Weather, YouTube, and Highlight (T-Mobile's news widget), amongst others. All the while, the phone's touch screen response and time never skipped a beat. This is one quick phone.
Internet
The G2x's browser was easy to access, courtesy of its placement within the Lunch menu. Pinching and zooming was a little laggy, but text wrapped when we did zoom, and that made life much easier. The beauty of Android 2.2 was its Flash support, which allowed us to watch videos within the browser, even without frame lag. In that way, our internet experience was closer to what one would expect on a computer. We could find key words on pages and open multiple windows, but our favorite part of the browsing experience had to be speed. HSPA+ speeds can only take you so far, but the G2x's dual core processor ensured a speedy delivery to the next tap.
Multimedia and Productivity
The speedy processor also came to the rescue while playing Need For Speed Shift, which was preloaded onto the phone, taking advantage of the G2x's accelerometer for ultimate 3D gaming on the go. Framerate and graphics were top notch, and the Android Market gave us unlimited access to over 150,000 applications and games to tack onto the G2x's toolbelt. The phone also offered Tegra Zone, which offered a slew of games optimized to work with dual-processor devices, such as Dungeon Defenders. In addition to a live-updating Calendar, we got Microsoft Active Exchange email support, in addition to support for Hotmail, Yahoo, and other web-based email clients. The phone's keyboard gave us Swype technology for faster input, and Polaris Office enabled us to work on Office documents on the go. We could also watch HD content on the phone, in addition to taking advantage of a responsive Pandora and Music interface.
Battery Life
When we get down to the nitty gritty, our T-Mobile G2x review unit did not fall into the best performer category. Its 1500mAh battery churned a mediocre longevity, so you'll need to charge this phone every night.
Camera
Like the G-Slate tablet, the G2x is capable of 1080p HD video recording, courtesy of its 8-megapixel camera. We know what you're thinking—1080p on a smartphone? There's no way it can be any good. Actually, the image quality was impressive—it rivaled entry-level point-and-shoot cameras. Unfortunately, the capture was choppy, as the recorded videos skipped frames here and there. Also, when we boosted the brightness in low light, we were subjected to one of the greatest performances of dancing noise particles we've ever seen. Although the camera is more sensitive than most phones we've ever seen, it does not pay to boost the brightness to the max in video mode.
Now that low light sensitivity really came to the rescue in low light. Flash? Who needs it when we can adjust the exposure two whole steps, offering unparalleled low light sensitivity within this class of smartphones. Our bright light images were great as well, and the cheap point-and-shoot market is going to be a fossil fairly soon if manufacturers maintain this level of image quality within smartphones. The G2x outshot the Atrix 4G easily, and it offers some of the best still image quality available on the market today.
The phone also gave us a robust Camera interface, rife with ISO (up to 800), White Balance, Focus, Scene modes, Color Effects (including an awesome Emboss filter), Panorama, Art shot, and more settings to keep us busy all day. Our only complaints had to do with the fact that we could not toggle the video light on and off while focusing, and the camera was devoid of touch focus. Fix the frame rate woes, clean up the noise, and give us the aforementioned manual controls, and the G2x would have been unstoppable.
It's fast as a speeding bullet and can leap buildings in a single bound. Yes, the G2x is one of the better options out there for those looking at the ultimate smartphone. It's got 1080p video recording and one of the best cameras we've seen on a phone. The G2x also offers Android 2.2 and a dual core processor that expedites navigation significantly. 3D gaming, office work, organization, HD videos, you name it—the G2x can handle it.
We could have used an included MicroSD card—at least 8GB to match the internal 8GB internal storage capacity. Also, the camera needs a little refinement, especially that jaggy motion in our 1080p HD videos. A newer version of Android would have been nice as well, but fortunately T-Mobile says Android 2.3 should arrive sooner rather than later.
At the end of the day, we had very few complaints about the T-Mobile G2x. If you're a T-Mobile customer, this is yet another gem in the company's fleet.
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